to change a bitter world
by catharsia
Summary: Prompt fill: 'Rey accepts Kylo's offer on Starkiller'. "Do you regret joining me now?" he asks, and she half-smiles. "No. This is where I need to be. I always understood what I was doing, I think." REYLO.


**heya! so, i uploaded this on ao3 a while ago, but thought i'd share it with people on here, too :) as you've probably guessed, it's a reylo fic which starts at the end of TFA and works its way through to the end of TLJ. see the end of the chapter for notes. enjoy!**

Rey is thrown back into the present with a sharp jolt.

She's no longer holding the strange metal lightsaber hilt; she's hurled it across the room. Maz stands behind her, eyes questioning, probing her for answers, but Rey can only shake where she stands.

 _Your parents are no-one._

She can barely see the space in front of her; everything seems to be tunnelling and warping. _I don't want this._

"I don't want this!" Rey spits aloud, and runs out of the room before Maz can react at all.

* * *

Her limbs ache, and her eyes feel so tired and blurry she thinks she must have turned half-blind. The bitter snow burns her skin and soaks through her thin clothes like acid, but she barely notices.

Kylo Ren is attacking her, red lightsaber writhing with unstable energy as it swings through the air towards her – movements that would seem acrobatic from anyone else, but from him just seem a statement of raw power.

Rey wonders if she should be panicking, but her mind has no space for anything but _breathe_ and _block strikes_ and _run_. And something else, too: his dark hair blows over his face in long, snow-covered strands, and, thinking of the perfectly composed man she saw when she first woke up on Starkiller, she can't help but feel a vindictive pleasure that she has brought him to this point.

She feels _angry_ , really, and the anger infuses her blood in perfect tandem with an itching feeling, that of something she has forgotten – something that could bring her to strange clarity if only she would let it.

"You need a teacher!" Kylo yells, teeth bared. "I could show you the ways of the Force!"

 _teacherteacherteacher forceforceforce_

 _\- the Force?_ she thinks, and closes her eyes, breathing deeply, trying to achieve the same mind-set as she had when she mind-tricked the guard.

Something inside her mind _opens,_ and she hisses despite herself.

Something intangible is calling her. _Your parents are no-one,_ it says, and she shivers, mind racked with confusion, arms weakening against the power Kylo wields. _You have no place here, unless you make one._

But, so help her, she doesn't know _how._

Kylo stares at her, eyes wide and almost pleading, and suddenly she does.

"Okay," she breathes, and he stares at her in confusion.

"I accept," she says louder. "I want you to teach me."

 _I'm sorry, Finn,_ she thinks briefly, but she knows Chewbacca will come for him soon, in the Falcon, and that he'll be okay. He can leave the Resistance after that, like he wanted.

Kylo's lightsaber pulls away from hers, and seconds later the only light in the forest is blue, blue illuminating the trees and the snow and his stunned, exhausted face. He's human – monstrous, maybe, and twisted and bitter, but he's human and he wants to teach her and until she knows how to control her abilities he's the best chance she has.

The next second, he moves his wrist into his mouth and speaks into a comm. "Lieutenant? Bring my ship to the fortieth sector. We're leaving."

* * *

Kylo is exceptionally bad at explaining how the Force works.

Perhaps, Rey muses, that's understandable. After all, he must have known it his whole life. How can you explain how to think?

Eventually, they agree it isn't working, and one evening, maybe three weeks after her arrival, a large collection of holos are delivered to her door – so large she wonders if it's everything he could find. On the Force – old Jedi and Sith holovids and texts, people explaining meditation and the different sides of the Force and how to channel it into fighting. Rey reads them almost every spare minute she has; listens to them as she falls asleep. She's been nineteen years without this: she has no time to waste in catching up.

Kylo, she thinks, seems impressed. It's hard to tell. She can't decide what to feel about him: he doesn't scare her. The intimidating act didn't last after the moment they first crossed blades on Starkiller. He's a man little older than herself – someone who has probably been badly manipulated and affection-starved throughout his life – and now? He's an enigma. Too emotional, but used to hiding that behind a mask and a flat voice modulator. Angry and sad and passionate and desperately lonely, really. He's committed atrocities, but he can't achieve even the bare minimum of human contact.

The colder part of Rey whispers, _pathetic._ The warmer part wants to help.

Both parts of her know that she needs his tutelage to make sense of herself, and her world, and so she stays and tries to understand and get to know him as best she can.

She performs katas – some of which he teaches her, and others which the holos do. She has no lightsaber: Kylo keeps his on him at all times, and although he's offered the blue one to her – she supposes he's okay with her using it now she's effectively an extension of his cause – she doesn't want to use it. She's scared, she supposes – scared that she'll touch it and it will reveal more horrible truths to her.

Instead, she uses her staff. It works well enough – the katas have been adapted to all types of lightsaber, and so her staff can be used for them too, but it's always slightly off-balance when she trains. Lightsaber blades are weightless, and the katas have been designed to work with this: having a entirely solid weapon is actually a disadvantage for her, now.

One day, Kylo walks into find her training, and actually smiles at the end of it. "You're progressing."

"Will I build a lightsaber soon?" she asks, emboldened, and he tilts his head a little, like a hunting dog assessing her neutrally. "Why not?"

* * *

It is raining.

Rey shivers in delight as they step off the ship, tilting her face up to the sky as drops of water pelt down onto her skin.

"Have you never seen it before?" Kylo calls to her, an uncharacteristic smile on his face, and she shakes her head, calling, "What did you expect? I lived on Jakku!"

He's nearer to her, now. "My home planet was Chandrila," he says. "There was no shortage of water. Everything was… blue, and green."

"Really?" Rey feels excitement coiling in her stomach. "It sounds beautiful."

"It was." He gives a short laugh. "I'd show it to you, but the climate is rather hostile towards the First Order nowadays."

"We could go in secret," Rey says, caught in a dream, and he laughs again, brighter this time. "In disguise?"

"Why not?" she says, and then reality comes crashing back down. Of course, there are a thousand reasons _why not._

Kylo's laughter stops. "We should find your crystal."

The climb to the caves takes a mere half-hour, but once they arrive there, Rey realises she has no idea what to expect. "How… how do I find it?" she asks curiously, and Kylo bites his lip a little. "It should just… call to you. Focus on the Force. It will tell you where to go."

 _In other words, you don't know?_ she thinks, with a slight twinge of amusement, and, as if he hears her words, he glances away ruefully.

With nothing else to try, she reaches out to the Force as best she can, and finds, to her surprise, that it's easier than usual: everything which usually feels stiff and unfamiliar in her mind is suddenly opened and amplified here – maybe its her, or the caves, or something else entirely, but she can feel everything with a defined sharpness – every swirl in the Force. The storm surrounding Kylo is even more prominent than ever, but there's something else – something violent and powerful surrounding _her,_ too. She shivers, but plunges her mind into it.

Something is ringing in her head from behind her.

Half in a daze, she turns, moving out of the little antechamber she's standing in and back towards the entrance, before turning and moving into one of the other branching tunnels. There's a cave at the end of it, and she blinks, suddenly fully back in the present, the Force closing off into a blur again.

It doesn't matter. The wall in front of her is glittering with crystals, and she reaches out to a pile of broken shards and plucks one up that seems to be about the right size.

"You found it?" Kylo says, standing in the tunnel behind her. "Good."

 _Well done,_ he doesn't say, but it is tangible in her voice anyway.

"You were unsure if I would," she says, suddenly certain of it, and he shifts. "Crystals are only prone to calling to the Light. I was unsure if you would have been able to obtain one in this manner."

She blinks. "So… I'm part of the Light? Isn't that…"

 _Isn't that bad?_

"No," he says eventually studying her. "I think you are something – new. Different."

 _Is that what you want?_

"We should assemble your lightsaber. You have the parts?"

She nods, bringing the pouch that holds the loose mechanics out from her jacket.

"Set them down," Kylo says, and she crouches on the ground to spill them onto the cave floor. "Do you remember how they fit?"

She chews her lip and nods, and he leans back, as if to tell her to start. She closes her eyes, focusing, keenly feeling the rush of cold air over her skin – damp, but not stale. Raising her hands, she concentrates, and the pieces are lifted into the air. She carefully manoeuvres them into order; then picks up the crystal with the Force, too. It slots into place neatly as the components slide together.

She closes her eyes again, briefly. When she opens them, her newly formed lightsaber is lying on the ground. The casing is silver, with a thin black line running down onto a slim handle of the same colour.

Kylo's lips have parted, slightly, but he says nothing.

Gingerly, Rey picks it up, half expecting it to fall to pieces in her hands, but it doesn't, and so she closes her eyes a final time and ignites it.

Her breath catches as she sees the blade. Pale – far paler than Kylo's or even the blue one she'd been using previously. Almost white, in fact, with the faintest amber glow.

"It's stunning," Kylo says at length, adding quietly, "it suits you."

* * *

It's a couple of weeks later that Kylo suggests a sparring session.

Rey's apprehensive, of course. The last time she fought him, she could barely fend off his blows, and he was bleeding out with a blaster bolt in his stomach.

"I won't go too fast," he says, and she nods. It's fine; she needs to fight against someone to learn, and Kylo's the only viable option around.

He starts off slowly, in fact. She ignites her saber and holds it in the opening stance for Ataru, like the holos have taught her. He makes the first advance, and she ducks around his strike, slicing before she feints and nearly catches him with her blade as he moves backwards in surprise.

She smiles. She's better than he thinks.

He hangs back this time, letting her make the first move, reassessing her, and she twirls her lightsaber around her body before it meets his in a swift clash. She wrenches her blade back and spins sideways, knowing his strength will overcome hers in a saber lock, heeding the warning the Force gives her as she rolls under another of his strikes and swings at his back.

He avoids it, moving backwards until they've entirely swapped positions.

"How did I do?" she asks, and a small smile brushes his lips.

"You've surpassed my expectations. You're learning fast, but you need to rely less on the forms. They were lost for a reason. They died with the Jedi and the Sith. Find your own way."

She blinks. Her own way?

"Try again," he says, reigniting his blade. "Be more instinctive. The Force will help you if you listen to it. Tell it what you want."

She nods unsurely, beginning to shift back into her opening stance before she frowns and adjusts her grip, holding her lightsaber in a simpler, more natural way.

"Good," Kylo breathes, then swings towards her.

She ducks, slicing her blade towards his legs, and he leaps out of the way, landing with a jolt on her other side as she straightens and bears down on him again. He blocks, twisting his weapon against hers, and disarms her.

"Good," he says again, and she realises he's breathing heavily.

She concentrates, pulling her saber into her hand and sliding it onto her belt.

"Have you never used any of the forms?" she asks curiously, and Kylo pauses.

"Not for a long time," he says quietly. "It's better. More instinctive. Your mind's less taken up with what movements you're _supposed_ to be doing."

* * *

Kylo's been gone for six days.

It's nothing unusual. What's unusual is when he suddenly shows up back at the base covered in blood and shaking despite himself.

The droids alert Rey, and she's not sure if it's their own initiative, or Kylo tells them to, but she's grateful for it anyway and hurries into the medbay as a sentient healer – a male Mirialan – is trying to prepare a painkiller drip for Kylo's arm.

"What happened?" she breathes, and Kylo's head jerks upwards, covered in sweat and lower lip trembling with tension. "Rey," he says in a low groan. "Tell this idiot I don't need painkillers."

She turns to the Mirialan. "What are his injuries?"

The Mirialan shrugs helplessly. "Nothing fatal, but certainly uncomfortable. Prolonged exposure to electric shock, and his forearm has been cut open with some kind of blade, left to bleed and later cauterised."

Rey's mind lurches, but she shakes her head. She's dealt with plenty of wounds in her time on Jakku. "You've put bacta on his arm?"

The Mirialan nods. "I was going to give him painkillers, but he, ah, didn't like the idea."

"Kylo," she says firmly, uncaring of whether she's overstepping, because he's being _ridiculous,_ "you need the painkillers."

Kylo shakes his head, still covered in tiny droplets of glistening sweat. "No. Pain… makes me stronger," he snarls, fighting to rise off the bed, but someone has wisely placed a restraining band across his stomach which he seems too weak to tear off.

"Pain like this will just mean you can't sleep! Does being stuck in the medbay from _pointless exhaustion_ make you stronger?"

Kylo's head rolls back onto his pillow, and she leans forwards, worried despite herself.

"Fine," he says at last, so muffled she wonders if she really hears it, but she jerks her head at the Mirialan to attach the drip anyway, and Kylo doesn't seem to protest.

She stays with him that night, and when they both wake in the morning, she asks quietly, "What happened?"

"Supreme Leader Snoke was displeased with the Starkiller debacle," he says eventually. "He thought I would be more durable than Hux, so he chose me to take out most of his anger on."

Rey feels faintly sick. "The electric shocks? I thought your cloak prevented that."

"He told me to take it off," Kylo murmurs, and Rey shivers. "Oh, Kylo."

"Do you regret joining me now?" Kylo asks. "I suppose I should have told you at the time."

"Yes, and I should have submitted a… a detailed job application," Rey says, half-smiling, half-exhausted and hopeless. "No. I don't. I… this is where I need to be. I always understood what I was doing, I think."

"Okay," he says. "That's good."

"Is this why you wanted me to join you?" she says eventually. "Because of Snoke? Is this why you're training me to be… different?"

And, like always, his lack of reply is answer enough.

* * *

A week later, when she walks into the training room, Kylo is already in there, lightsaber twirling around him in some kind of deadly, vicious dance.

He pauses when he senses her, and she walks over to him. "The Force… it's turbulent around you."

"It always is," he says with the ghost of a smile, and she shrugs. "More than usual."

"Snoke," he says carefully, "has told me that… he wants Leia dead. By my hand."

"Your mother?" Rey says quietly. "Kylo, I…" she trails off, lost in all the phrases that are inadequate to say.

"What happened to your parents, Rey?" he asks, slumping to the ground, and she flinches. "They died."

He looks up at her, meeting her gaze for the first time since she's entered the room. "I'm sorry," he says, and there's a tremor in his lip and a glisten at the edge of his eye that tells her he's rarely been more genuine.

"I never knew them," she says quietly. "Not that I remember. They sold me - to a slaver when I was a child. I think I always knew, but I saw it when I… when I touched that blue lightsaber. In the Force."

"I'm sorry," he repeats, and the words are empty but the meaning behind them is not.

"What happened with you?" she says, voice just a whisper now. "Why…"

 _Why did your family abandon each other?_

"My parents sent to me train with my uncle when I was young," Kylo says quietly. "He never liked me. He was always suspicious… one night, I woke up and found him raising his saber over his head to kill me in my sleep. I burned the temple and attacked him and some of the students who tried to stop me and fled. Snoke welcomed me. He'd been trying to get me to the point where I'd join him for years."

"Families," Rey says eventually, voice new and untested and raw, "are bantha shit."

"That," Kylo replies, "I think we agree on." He pauses. "You might think you're nothing… you might come from nothing… but you're not. Not to me."

Something inside Rey twists – not pleasantly or unpleasantly. She simply looks at Kylo.

"I-" he amends, "I didn't mean it like that."

"I know," she says softly, and smiles, meaning it.

He doesn't speak again for several minutes and she thinks their conversation is over when he says, "Still. I can't kill Leia."

* * *

Their ship soars out of hyperspace days later, streaking through the sky above a relatively large system, close to the Expansion Region on the edge of the Mid Rim. It's nearing the twilight hours on the planet they enter, small sun dropping away beyond the horizon.

Rey's cloaked in the kind of expensive black robes that Kylo favours (mostly for the melodrama, she assumes) and she pulls her hood over her head as they step off board the ship, lightsaber prominently displayed on her thin belt.

It's a large port, but the locals and travellers alike look at them in mild disgust. The First Order isn't welcome there, and she wonders with a grim smile what atrocities they've endured. She's almost impressed that it takes as long as three standard days for open warfare to break out.

Alarms start blaring in her guest quarters before she's barely dressed, and she has just enough time to pull her long cloak on and call her saber to her hand before Kylo is pushing her door open, beckoning her with his eyes. They sprint out of the building together, jumping on a sleek speeder to take them downtown, and the ozone stench that clings to the planet slides sharply into her sinuses as they zoom through the air.

The battleground is easy to spot. The locals seem to have provoked the fight; there's a small, defensive knot of troopers in the centre of a square, firing blasters set to kill into a clamouring crowd.

 _It's a distraction,_ she thinks suddenly, senses tingling with a rush that can only have come from the Force, and as she turns to warn Kylo she sees that he's already felt it.

"Where is the main hangar?" he snaps, voice urgent even through his modulator.

"Towards the west, sir. I can take us there-"

"Do it!" he says, cutting off the trooper mid-speech, and the next second Rey grips the edge of the speeder tightly as they skid at a 90° angle, swerving sharply to avoid a tower in the process.

Perhaps two minutes later she's flipping herself over the side of the speeder in pursuit of Kylo; her hood flies off as she does so, but she can't afford the time it would take to yank it back on as she races to catch up.

By the time she gets there, Kylo's hand is outstretched as he holds a man in the air with the Force.

A pilot, she realises. Dressed in signature Resistance orange and white - it's about the most glaringly obvious outfit he could have chosen. Behind him, an – orange and white - BB-unit whistles indignantly, spouting some of the worst language she's ever heard at both her and Kylo; its stun prod is snapped in half already.

 _He's trying to escape, to get off planet. That's why the locals are fighting in the square: to draw attention away._

"Your diversion is going well," she comments, eyes glaring with hostility she's willing on with all her strength. "Very effective." The pilot sneers back at her for a second, before suddenly choking mid-air, eyes wide.

She momentarily thinks it's Kylo's work, but the man's next words dispel that thought. "You're the scavenger," he breathes. "The one who was kidnapped. Rey."

She stares at him incredulously before a moment, before managing to grasp the situation. "Finn… he went back to the Resistance… he told you I'd been kidnapped?"

The pilot nods. "Look, we can escape-"

"Can you really?" Kylo drawls, jerking the pilot a little in the air.

"Two of us against a Dark side-y idiot playing dress up? I like those odds," the pilot says, and she can't help but admire him a little, even if it's just pointless bravado.

"Listen to me," she says, sighing as Kylo bristles next to her. "I wasn't kidnapped. This is _voluntary._ As a present, we're going to let you go back to your precious Resistance, but _you_ have to do something for us in exchange."

The pilot's eyes widen, but he recovers his sense quickly enough to spit, "Why would I? Traitor," and she rolls her eyes a little.

"If we are forced to kill you, your friends back there will die for nothing," Kylo says silkily. "Unless I have misjudged you, Dameron, you'll acquiesce to our little request."

The pilot's face – _Dameron's_ face – contorts, eyes pained, but he nods brusquely after a second. "What is it?"

Kylo produces a holodisc from his robes. "Deliver this to my mother."

Dameron blinks, momentarily ceasing his struggling in mid-air. "That's… it? No evil plan involved?"

"Maybe there is," Rey comments, finding she's almost enjoying this, despite herself. "It's just too evil for you to comprehend."

Dameron sneers. "You're nothing like Finn said you were. He told me you were a good person."

"He knew me for roughly two days," Rey replies, something twinging in her chest. "A little quick to form that kind of view."

"Deliver the disc, Dameron," Kylo says, and she can sense him getting ever more tense the more time they waste. "You can even have a ship as another gift."

"I don't need one," Dameron snaps, taking the disc gingerly.

"You do if you don't want our patrol to blast you out of the sky," Rey says, and Dameron casts her one last glare before he nods. "Fine, I'll do it."

Together, they watch him as he boards the TIE they allot him, holodisc stashed under his arm carelessly like he's hoping he'll drop it. "It must kill a man like him," Rey murmurs after a pause. "Just abandoning the people here to fight for him."

"Last time we met he would have stayed to be a hero," Kylo agrees, adding bitterly, "now, he has more sense. Leia must love him."

"I think he's an idiot," Rey says, partially because she does, and partially because of the sad note that tinges Kylo's voice. She wonders if he smiles, beneath his helmet.

"He'll give her the disc," he murmurs. "The Resistance will be happy we're going to do their dirty work for them."

"Ecstatic," she agrees. "Think they'll call _us_ heroes?"

"They might even kill us painlessly," Kylo says, and she laughs, as bitter as him, and watches as Dameron's ship vanishes in the sky.

The Force pulls at her, and she spins a second before Kylo does - just as the blaster is aimed at her head.

Another Resistance member points it at her: maybe a local. She doesn't pause to think before she throws him back with the Force, in an almost dreamlike state as he stares up at her, defiant and terrified, and her lightsaber slashes down across his neck. Someone is screaming: a battlecry. As it fades, she vaguely realises it's her.

"Rey?" says Kylo behind her, and she jerks her head upwards. "I-"

Another shot echoes out from behind them, and the next she knows Kylo has stopped the blaster bolt in mid air and thrown it aside with the Force. It crashes into a nearby building as he chokes the second assailant to death.

"I- I just-"

"So did I," Kylo says, breathing heavily. "We need to go," he adds, strangely softly. "Rey? Come on."

It's only after he's tugged her back to the speeder and they're safely in and out of their quarters and then off planet that she starts crying, freely and earnestly, and he sits with her and tells her _I understand_ and _it's okay._

He stays with her that night and _I killed someone, oh hell I don't know what happened to me,_ and calms her down and it's only as she drifts off to sleep that she remembers the holodisc and its message and how she's going to have to kill again.

* * *

When she enters their shared training room, one evening days later, she finds him frowning, sitting on the floor with his legs crossed, face darkened with frustration.

"Kylo?" she asks cautiously, and his eyes snap up to meet hers.

"I was… trying to meditate. It's not –" he shrugs helplessly. "I don't know. It's as if I can't, any more."

"Okay," she murmurs. "I could… try and help you?"

He doesn't respond, which she takes as a go ahead. She sits down opposite him, about half a metre away, and tentatively reaches out her hands.

He takes them, fingers faintly warmer than hers.

"Close your eyes," she says quietly. "And reach out…"

She opens her own eyes a crack and watches as his frown fades to a faint crease on his forehead – residual annoyance, maybe, but she thinks it's more likely to be concentration.

"Okay. Now breathe – slowly. Try and feel the Force around you more deeply with each breath."

"You sound like Luke," he murmurs. "A… less irritating version. Less likely to hit me with a leaf."

"Don't count on it," she says, smiling, and the small twitch of his lips erases any crease left between his eyes.

They don't speak after that, sitting in companionable silence, and it's not much later that she opens her eyes a little again, to see him fully immersed in a trance. A wave of calm washes over her, and her hands settle between his as she slips into her own subconsciousness.

* * *

Rey first realises something is wrong rather abruptly, when Kylo bursts into her room in the middle of the night.

"Snoke is coming and he knows about you," he says in a rush, and Rey doesn't even have time to ask any useful questions, such as, _what?_ , before Kylo continues speaking. "I'll do what I have to," he says, almost to himself. "Get dressed. Quickly. And, Rey?"

Her eyes are locked onto his. He says nothing, but she understands everything anyway.

They're marched across the connector bridge that has been placed between their ship and Snoke's in the early hours, unfamiliar guards dressed in red armour escorting them.

They do not speak in the elevator that carries them to the throne room; Kylo's finger merely brushes against her hand. Rey refrains from shivering, eyes locked onto the durasteel panelling in front of her, sliding up and down its perfect surface. She could die today, she knows, and that thought scares her more than anything. She's _not ready to die._ She's only just come to realise the full extent of her abilities. Her story can't end here, now, today, at the hands of a corrupt old abuser.

The doors slide open, and she walks out into the room with a spear at her back. It's huge, entirely crimson, with an ugly mechanical throne at the centre – tasteless, inelegant and almost entirely metal. Rey doesn't stop her lip curl as she stares at the man sitting on it. _Snoke,_ she thinks. _This is the man that hurts Kylo. This is the man behind the First Order._ Beside her, Kylo's pace is steady, movements unusually quiet, and she hopes to all hell he knows what he's doing.

"My faithful apprentice," Snoke announces, slight sadistic amusement bound up in his tone. "And his companion… I do not believe you have introduced us, young Solo."

Rey can't help but jolt slightly as the name falls from Snoke's tongue. _Solo._ Of course it's Kylo's real name, but she's never before connected it to him – only to Han.

"I'm Rey," she says on a strange whim, and Snoke leans forwards, long pale fingers gripping his throne tightly. This time, she does shiver.

"Come closer, child," he says, voice almost a purr, and sickened disgust pools in the back of her throat as she steps forwards hesitantly.

She doesn't need to. The next moment, she's held stiff as Snoke pulls her towards him with the Force, and her head aches, his presence is so _cold_ and _wrong._

"Darkness rises, and light to meet it," he observes, and she wants to laugh hysterically, to spit in his face that he's wrong, but he reaches out again with the Force and pulls her lightsaber from her belt, placing it beside him. "But which are you?"

 _I am neither,_ she thinks, fiercely, revulsion drenching her features. _I am not bound by your rules, and Kylo isn't, now, either._

"It is of no matter," Snoke continues. "With this act of treachery, my apprentice has given me the tools to complete his training. An inspired decision, truly. Now, Kylo Ren, you will destroy this weak girl, and finalise your loyalty."

Rey hisses as she is spun to face Kylo and forced onto her knees, mind burning - but something moves within the Force, and her eyes open wide. She stares at Kylo in realisation, suddenly glad that her back is turned to Snoke.

"My worthy apprentice," Snoke breathes, and his words crawl down her spine but she doesn't care – she _knows_ how this can end, she knows what Kylo must do, now. "Son of darkness. Heir apparent to Lord Vader. Where there was conflict, I now sense resolve. Where there was weakness, strength. Complete your training and fulfil your destiny!"

Kylo's eyes hold hers, neutral, blank, emotionless. If Snoke knew his apprentice any better, that would have been a sure sign of what was wrong, Rey thinks derisively, even as her heart slams against her ribcage in anticipation and tension and _thishastoworkthishasto._

"I know what I have to do," Kylo says, voice more flat and void than she's ever heard it.

"I see him turning the lightsaber to strike true. And now, foolish child, he ignites it, and _kills_ his true enemy!" Snoke spits, and Rey twists her neck as Kylo clenches his fist and Snoke lets out a strangled gasp behind her.

Rey's lightsaber is ignited, white blade spilling through Snoke's stomach and wrists and bone, and she calls it to her hand with ease as Kylo ignites his own saber.

She looks at him once, and they turn back to back without a word, as the red guards around the room move, weapons activating.

It's the deadliest fight she's ever been in. The guards attack furiously, and she screams at them in sudden rage, perfectly focused despite herself, emotions flowing through her body and binding the Force to act as one with her as her saber flows through the air. She doesn't use a form: it's just her and her instincts and the Force.

She plunges her saber into one of their bodies, snarling, then draws another pair away as Kylo spins in a circle, weapon raised to point outwards from his face. It's almost as if she can hear his thoughts.

She whirls her lightsaber around her body and screams again, thoughts pouring through her teeth as another guard advances, and she is caught in lock with it for several horrible seconds before her weapon stabs through its armour and she throws the body away. Somehow it's easier, this way, when she can't see the humans, just the armour. Like they're droids, as horrible and sickening and _nonono_ as that is.

Kylo hurls another one into some kind of life size shredder, and she glances up in time to see chunks of what she hopes is just armour flying into the air as the next guard meets her head on. It slices through her shoulder, and she screams through gritted teeth, slashing back blindly until she's caught in its strangling embrace, unable to touch it with her weapon hand stuck, but she drops her saber and catches it with her other hand, slicing through the guard's body and letting it collapse to the ground.

Red spots dancing in her eyes, she whirls around as the Force tugs at her to see Kylo caught in the hold of his last opponent. Hurling him her saber, he catches it and ignites it into the guard's head.

A thousand stupid things rush into her head – _they're dead, we're alive; I just helped kill nine people; the Supreme Leader is dead._ It's the only situation she hoped for but it's still a horrible shock and as Kylo runs to her and envelops her into his arms at last she wants to cry, to break down again for just a little while.

He releases her after a few too-short moments. "You're hurt?"

"It's superficial," she says, the moment seeming almost banal. "I'll be fine. Kylo, are you-"

He nods, and she doesn't even know what she was asking but the worry inside her lessens at that.

She collapses to the ground, then, almost wanting to laugh. "We… we killed him." Her brain seems only able to repeat that one fact.

"I'll send a message through to Leia's personal comm," Kylo says, pulling off his gloves and tossing them onto the ground – fingers trembling slightly, she notes. "Tell her it's done. Then we take Snoke's escape craft and run before the Resistance arrives."

Rey nods, running her hands over her face as she slowly stands. This is the plan. They worked it out weeks ago. She's changed herself to get this far; she's killed for this and fought for this and alienated herself from any reasonable people in the world but she knows who she is and she's found him so maybe it's okay.

"Hey," he says quietly, holding a hand out to her. "It's okay."

She nods again, wondering vaguely how he reads her mind, and meeting his eyes she realises they're both close to tears.

Then, she takes his hand, and they leave the destroyed room together.

* * *

"Things are much easier when you have access to as much money as you want," Rey points out, and Kylo laughs.

"Well, now we do. _Stolen_ money, though. My mother would not approve."

"She might not have time to approve now, being in charge of the new Republic."

"It's nothing new to her," Kylo murmurs, a tangle of wires dangling from his hand as he pauses from where he's been fixing their ship's hyperdrive. "She's always been an amazing diplomat. I remember, once, she took me to a planet with her for a gala dinner, and ended up forging three new interplanetary alliances and getting a huge amount of credits for a refugee scheme of hers from an old Separatist planet. I _think_ it was planned."

Rey laughs, sitting back and pulling her hair out of its loose braid, separating it into two and twirling it around her head in little mock buns. "Hey, do I look like her?"

"Well," Kylo says quietly. "I'm told she was beautiful, so I suppose you must do."

Her smile fades and catches as she finds herself gazing like an idiot into his warm brown eyes.

"I've been wondering," she says eventually, "Your last name was Solo, before you joined Snoke. What was your first name?"

"Ben," Kylo says simply. "After a man my mother and Luke knew. A Jedi."

"Ben," she repeats. An uncomplicated, innocent name. "Can I call you that?"

Kylo blinks, like a Lothcat caught in a searchlight. "Um – of course. I think I'd like that."

She smiles, face wan but genuine, as her hair falls out of its little buns and tumbles over her shoulders. "I don't know where we're going, but we're going to be okay… Ben."

His face breaks into a wide smile, and he sits down next to her. "I know. I think I've known that since I saw you on Starkiller, despite... everything."

"Why are you so good at lines like that?" she murmurs, and kisses him.

 _We're okay,_ she thinks, that night as she lies next to him. _We're okay we're okay_ and the galaxy won't know that or care but maybe they can heal themselves.

* * *

They land on the planet at dawn: the old base of the Resistance, now the centre of the Third Republic. The guards fall into sleep as Rey suggests it to them, blasters tumbling from their hands, and she squeezes Kylo's hand once as he moves silently through the gates and towards the long residential sector.

She knows he'll find the house he needs. Leia Organa's Force signature is more familiar to him than even hers.

Dawn is approaching as she waits for him, shrouded in her long green cloak and periodically dipping into the guards' minds to put them to rest again. Dawn has come by the time he returns to her, gold and amber streaking across the pearly grey sky.

He nods a little, smiling – _I spoke to her, it was okay, she loves me, she's okay, we'll be okay -_ and there's a silver necklace held in his left hand that wasn't there before, a little Alderaanian symbol etched into it with delicate finesse. Wordlessly, he fastens it around her neck, fingers brushing her skin gently. They trail down her arm until he's holding her hand.

If anyone had been watching at that precise moment in time, they would have seen how the man's eyes caught the girl's like they were the elixir that would make him come alive; how the smile which broke over her face in response was pure and vibrant and utterly content; how it stayed etched into her features as she tilted her face upwards and kissed him softly, slowly, like a creature emerging into the beautiful fragility of a new world.

Then, together, they run lightly back towards their small ship, and vanish into unknown hyperspace.

 **this fic was originally written as a gift for firelord65 on ao3, but honestly i wish i'd come up with the prompt by myself, because it's perfect and the whole thing was so fun to write!**

 **one element i didn't include was the force bond, which i know is a major component of most post-tlj reylo fics, because, well, there's a LOT of romantic potential there, but it just didn't fit with this - for one thing, they spend most of the fic next to each other. maybe the next piece i write will centre around it.**

 **please tell me what you thought! 3**


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